Happy squirrel
See this black dot? In the red circle? That's a black squirrel. I love seeing them against the white snow.
This little guy spotted us during our walk in the park, and came bounding over,
and stared at us expectantly.
You can imagine how embarrassed we were to tell him we weren't actually trying to get his attention, we were just taking a photo.
It reminded me of a little squirrel I used to feed peanuts to, when we were living on Toronto Island a couple of years ago. I scattered nuts around on the side deck and up along the handrail, then sat and watched him and his friend, "Skinny", come to collect them. Sometimes they'd peel and eat a few right there, sometimes they would carry them away and bury them in the snow for later. This usually involved putting one whole, unopened nut in their mouth, then stuffing another in next to it, at which point the first one would pop out. They'd pick it up and stuff that one back in again, and the second one would pop back out. This is how humans are smarter. We have backpacks.
I was entranced by this little comedy show, but also in the way the little squirrel looked like he was smiling when I got a look at his profile. His little mouth curved upward, and with his little chubby cheek and bright eye - well, he looked just like a little cartoon character.
Truly, it was like this:
So happy!
I always assumed that this was what squirrels looked like all the time, but after seeing others in the park, and now looking at photos on the internet (yes, I did my research on this), they actually don't all look like they're smiling. I think I just had one happy squirrel visitor, or at least one that really liked peanuts. I wonder if he's still there, and if he's still happy?
